CannaMed - Colorado's largest medical pot evaluation company - faces scrutiny for selling patient information Karen needed a medical marijuana card. She'd smoked enough pot in her fifty years to know that it subdued her recurring headaches, her nausea, the pain that lingered from the knee surgery she'd had a few years earlier. With all the medical marijuana dispensaries proliferating around Denver, it just made sense to get legal with her medication. To obtain that card, though, she needed a doctor to recommend her for medical marijuana - and since she couldn't afford health insurance, she hadn't seen a regular physician in years. Where to find a doctor? The answer was easy: CannaMed. [continues 828 words]
Do you know what this is? [photo http://www.mapinc.org/images/pot24.jpg ] Then we want you! Do you have a medical condition that necessitates marijuana? Do you have a way with words? If so, Westword wants you to join the ranks as our freelance marijuana-dispensary reviewer. To provide an objective resource on the state's burgeoning medical marijuana scene, Westword has launched "Mile Highs and Lows," a weekly review of Colorado marijuana dispensaries. Now we're looking for just the right person to take the reins. [continues 195 words]
Thank you for a fair, comprehensive, well-written article on medical cannabis. This sets the standard for intelligent, adult discussion of this issue. I believe that we will begin to see more of this kind of propaganda-free investigation across mainstream media. For far too long, the "just say no," head-in-the-sand policy has squelched true public discourse on this extremely important subject. Brinna Nanda via the Internet [end]
Thanks to Joel Warner for another excellent article. As he mentioned, the Colorado Board of Health has proposed a rule change that would impose a limit on the number of medicinal cannabis patients for whom a caregiver could work. This will only make it more difficult for patients to get their medicine by forcing them back into the black market. Currently, a caregiver can provide for many patients. Most patients do not have the knowledge or are too sick to grow their own cannabis. It takes years of practice to learn how to grow an adequate supply of cannabis for one patient, with only the six plants allowed by the Colorado Constitution. Cannabis cultivation experts have been enlisted to serve as caregivers, and therapeutic cannabis dispensaries have formed all over Colorado to provide for multiple patients. The dispensaries are able to produce medicines in quantities large enough to keep the cost to the patient at a minimum and also to create edible forms of cannabis, such as cookies, brownies and other foods. Although cooking with cannabis requires a much larger amount of the raw substance, eating cannabis food is a far healthier way to ingest the medicine. [continues 102 words]
Behind a locked, unmarked door in a Colorado Springs strip mall, the state's largest marijuana dispensary is open for business. The operation's aromatic showroom is packed floor to ceiling with pot and anything and everything related to it. "Welcome to Cannabis Therapeutics. Intended for prescribed medical use only!" announces a large sign on the wall. Glass cases display Baggie upon Baggie of pot - 35 varieties in all. Those looking for cheap medicine can go for the $250-an-ounce, bargain-basement Holland's Hope or upgrade to $300-an-ounce Thunderstruck or $400-an-ounce Purple Haze. Big spenders can opt for top-shelf meds such as a crop of Chocolate Chunk priced at $500 an ounce. It's all available to buy loose or ready to smoke in pre-rolled blunts. And, for green thumbs, cloned marijuana seedlings sit in a bubbling tray of water, waiting for the right buyer. [continues 4799 words]
Through no fault of my own, actual pieces of news sometimes, somehow, work their way into the inner confines of What's So Funny headquarters. Situated comfortably in my vacuum-sealed, germ-free giant obelisk that hovers menacingly above the city, kestrel-like in its vigilance, one would think mine would be an impregnable fortress of humor, a comical refuge where the dick jokes flow like wine, where men in ill-fitting tuxedos engage in hilarious pratfalls hourly, and where someone is always, always, teasing a penguin. [continues 815 words]
Whatever one thinks of SAFER's campaign tactics -- and they were controversial even among those who favor an end to marijuana prohibition -- the simple fact is that Mason Tvert's message was true ("Going to Pot," November 24). By any objective standard, marijuana is safer than alcohol. Toxicity? Alcohol overdoses kill Americans every year, while no fatal marijuana overdose has ever been documented. Addiction? Of those who ever take a drink, 15 percent get hooked on booze, compared to 9 percent for marijuana. Violence? Alcohol is well-documented to be a major cause of aggression and violence, while marijuana almost universally reduces aggression in users. Just ask any cop if he'd rather arrest a drunk or someone who's high on marijuana. Denver voters did the right thing. Bruce Mirken Marijuana Policy Project Washington, D.C. [end]
Greetings from the Mile High City. "Mind if I smoke?" asks Frank Rich, Denver's drunken ambassador. Who could mind? We're sitting in Club 404, a 53-year-old bar in the heart of Denver, a town that's suddenly turned into America's new-age sin city, a place where vice is very nice -- if, in fact, it qualifies as vice at all. Last fall, Denver was toasted as "The Drunkest Big City in America" by Men's Health magazine, and while the stated reasons for that honor did not cite Rich, who founded Modern Drunkard magazine here in 1996, they certainly should have. He's about to crisscross the country on a book tour, touting this town's liquid assets as he talks up The Modern Drunkard: A Handbook for Drinking in the 21st Century, a malted manifesto already bubbling up the Amazon charts. [continues 1154 words]
Wow...Alan Prendergast's "The Maverick," in the May 20 issue, blew me away, and I am e-mailing it to everyone in my address book. This is the kind of stuff that Americans need to be hearing about on the nightly news. A change in drug policy would cure the financial woes of our fine country. It has indeed become a war on people, and the madness must stop. Thanks to Westword for having the courage to publish material like this. I know you have probably taken lots of heat for it, but remember that there are many folks who are stealth supporters. We are hanging out under the radar lest our own careers be in jeopardy. Hannibal, Missouri [end]
Alan Prendergast's article is so on the money. The "war on drugs" has always been a war on the African, native and Latino communities. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity is having the same people at the table who created this mess. Insanity is believing the aboveground economy can compete with the underground economy when, through the strategy of drug prohibition and the war on drugs, we have made these drugs worth more than gold. Insanity is AmeriKKKa's war on drugs. Great piece. Hartford, Connecticut [end]
Thanks for your story on Sheriff Bill Masters and his outspoken criticism of America's war on (some) drugs. His comment about how other members of law enforcement often agree with his position on the topic but then fail to join him publicly was most telling. Readers should know that Masters also serves on the advisory board for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. LEAP was formed two years ago for the purpose of giving a voice to police, judges and other members of the criminal-justice system who disagree with some or all of the policies related to 21st-century prohibition. We now have over a thousand members, with fifty-plus who can speak publicly across the U.S., Canada and in several other countries. As a non-profit organization, we rely on individuals in the community to help us arrange speaking events at civic clubs, school groups (college or high school), church groups, etc. Clearwater, Florida [end]
Bill Masters Is No Dope. So What Turned Him Against the War on Drugs? In the big city, the search would take him down mean streets, to a ratty duplex or a motel bathroom or some tweaker's garage. But the resort town of Telluride has no mean streets, and the rest of San Miguel County, where Masters has been sheriff for the past 25 years, has almost no streets at all. But that doesn't mean that this sinfully scenic county is a drug-free zone. Dope is everywhere, if you want to go hunting for it. On this particular morning in early May, Masters has solid intelligence about a suspected methamphetamine operation tucked deep in the woods, and he wants to eyeball the place himself before sending any of his deputies into harm's way. So he slips behind the wheel of a 1995 white Bronco -- the oldest vehicle in his agency's fleet -- and heads for the high country. [continues 5826 words]
A Year In The Life Of The State's Most Dysfunctional Prison. Stabbings and beatings are common. Drugs are plentiful -- although ingesting them sometimes has unforeseen results. A restraint chair comes in handy, as does the occasional warning shot from Tower III. And whatever you do, don't mess with inmate Ramirez. Those are some of the impressions of the Limon Correctional Facility gleaned from internal documents recently obtained by Westword. The Colorado Department of Corrections reports on the troubled state prison summarize months of disruptions, gang conflicts, assaults on staff and other violent incidents that occurred prior to the murder of a corrections officer last fall. [continues 1157 words]
Blowing Smoke: I enjoyed your Best of Denver 2002 issue, with one exception. I have run for public office twice in opposition to the War on Drugs, but I still feel that for you to publicize the jerk selling nitrous-oxide cannisters over the counter is the height of irresponsibility. Kids can kill themselves with those sorts of things. Inadvertently, you highlight the essential problem of the War on Drugs: If society reacts irrationally to the search for ecstatic experience, all choices available to young people seem equivalent. All choices are not equivalent, and I'm sure the Westword staff knows that as well as anyone else. Bad show, ladies and gentlemen. [continues 473 words]
Teacher's fret: I was fortunate enough to take a class in law school taught by the Honorable John Kane (Stuart Steers's "Disorder in the Court," November 22). He was, by far, the most interesting, compelling and erudite teacher I had. Not only are his views on this country's ill-advised drug policy astute, but his assessment of the constitutionality (or lack thereof) of mandatory sentences is right on. But for a Reagan/Bush-packed Supreme Court, whose leader makes Rush Limbaugh look liberal, the separation-of-powers theory would not allow the legislature to hogtie the judiciary's ability to hand out just sentences for drug cases. Not mentioned, but just as egregious, is the fact that in Colorado, a person faces a possible twelve years in prison for possessing cocaine residue if it can be analyzed by the state. If that person hands this residue to a friend, he faces up to 32 years. [continues 701 words]
Seeds of dissension: So, a hemp-seed granola bar is in the same category as heroin (Marty Jones's "Hemp Burns Out," November 22)? Why prohibitionist politicians force the cultivation of hemp and cannabis in this atmosphere is barbaric. God gave us hemp and cannabis, and only God will take them away -- not some terrorist form of government that profits from this freak show called the War on Drugs. It defies integrity and rationality to cage humans for using cannabis. And to cage sick citizens using cannabis for relief of pain is vile, morbid and spiteful for a civilization in the year 2001. Further, as a Christian, it is a sin to cage your brother or neighbor for using cannabis. Thank God for cannabis. Accept cannabis (also known as kaneh bosm, before the King James Version) for what it is described as on the very first page (like deja vu) of the Bible (Genesis 1:11-12, 29-30). Cannabis prohibition is a very serious crime. [continues 151 words]
Praisin' Kane Regarding federal judge John Kane (Stuart Steers's "Disorder in the Court," November 22), I have three words for this man: God bless him. It amazes me that so few in his position see what is painfully obvious: The "War on Drugs" is a colossal waste of money and manpower; hypocritical (as long as booze is legal), unconstitutional (see "pursuit of happiness"), and used by law enforcement as a license to steal (oh -- sorry -- the word the cops use is "seize") and freely vent their hostilities on what are essentially the modern-day witches, with a zeal not seen since the dawn of the civil-rights movement. [continues 1223 words]
United States District Court Judge John L. Kane is informally holding court behind his desk in downtown Denver's federal courthouse. The 64-year-old jurist puts on his reading glasses, arches his bushy gray eyebrows and begins leafing through a pile of articles he keeps in a folder. He pulls one out and solemnly begins reading what is essentially an indictment in the most serious case he's ever considered in his 23-year career on the bench. The plaintiff? The people of the United States of America. [continues 3090 words]
For seven years, the hemp ice cream produced in Das Agua's shop, Original Sources, made him a successful businessman. Today it makes him a criminal. Created with "milk" made from the ground seeds of industrial hemp -- marijuana's low-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) sister plant -- Agua's Hemp I Scream may now be a controlled substance, thanks to an October 9 ruling by the Drug Enforcement Administration that deems illegal any foods containing even a trace of THC, pot's psychoactive ingredient. [continues 1035 words]
The Pendulum Is Swinging Back From Stiff Mandatory Sentences For Drug Offenses. Not long ago, Christie Donner was seen as a fringe figure in state politics, advocating unpopular changes in the stern laws that form the centerpiece of Colorado's part in the nation's War on Drugs. Donner, director of the Colorado Prison Moratorium Coalition, argues that Colorado's prison-building boom has been an expensive mistake. Her belief that Colorado chooses to imprison thousands of drug addicts while failing to adequately fund drug treatment programs is at odds with the rhetoric of politicians who promise to get tough on drugs. [continues 1132 words]
